Radial Saw Solution

My dad’s 1966 radial arm saw had to go. Its footprint, with its stand, was too demanding for my meager shed. But, garage sale offers of $30 – 50, ticked me off. This is a great saw!

Since I am a maker of smallish items, I figure I can sacrifice some of my assembly/outfeed table. So this is my solution. I can still rip a 10 foot board with 11 inches to each side of my table saw blade, with a 3” height clearance (underneath the RAS). This is sufficient for me anyway.

I completely readjusted the saw so everything is square with no slop. I hope it stays that way. The working height of the RAS table is perfect for my aging eyes. I plan on devising jigs that can be clamped in the fence clamping mechanism for miters and hold-downs for the smaller chunks I work with. Any suggestions of other jigs or fixture you might have for a RAS, would be greatly appreciated.

I just freecycled a shopsmith RAS. My uncle passed it on to me when he died. I have used the saw for some time and made lots of wonderful things with it. I was very glad to pass it on to someone who would use it and it free’d up some much needed floor space. Because my lovely bride bought me a Hitachi 12 in. sliding miter to replace my aging Delta cheapy, I needed the space more than I needed the saw. I will miss the table, it doubled as an assembly table and a router table on many occassions.

Ps.Radial arm saws are great for cross cutting and if the arbor is big enough it makes a great dado station. It happens that I love my table saw and don’t mind the set up time.

Great mitering method, Patron. I’ll have a go at that. The clamp and the pin are sufficient at holding the miter fence?

Ron ~ The RAS is great as a dadoing station and for cutting short rabbets. You can also rip, groove, raise panels, cut flush handholds. If you can find the accessories, you can even overhead shape and rout. It is a very versatile (if somewhat fussy) tool. I will dedicate this one to a few tasks that might save me some time changing my little, underpowered table saw.

The number of different operations that can be performed with a radial-arm saw are amazing. While it is mainly a crosscut saw, it can be used to rip, cut bevels or miters, dadoes and rabbets, form moldings, and in some cases, even serve as a guide for a router.

Of course, there are trade-offs to all of this versatility. For one, many radial arm saws are more difficult to set up cuts than some other tools. For instance, if you were cutting compound miters, you’d be able to set up a compound miter saw much more quickly and consistently than a radial arm saw. If you were ripping stock, a table saw is a much faster setup. However, a radial-arm saw can handle both tasks with ease, which gives considerable value.

rescued the exact same ras from craig’s for little or nothing (the guy just wanted it out of his new home:))it’s a fantastic saw, now if i could only figure out a way to transport it safely from job to job. JK!

Most of my project were built using my RAS. There are a couple of good books for the RAS:

- Fine Tuning your Radial Arm Saw by John Eakes. The RAS bible. Can be found on Amazon.- How to Master the Radial Arm Saw by Wally Kunkle (Mr SawDust). Can be found using an internet search for the Mr. Saw Dust site. Wally is the father of the RAS.

They have all the jigs and tips you will ever need. The ones that I use the most often are:- Mitre jig using a break fence- Fence stop blocks- Small piece hold downs (To get very square cuts, being able to clamp pieces to table and fence is helpful)

From the photos, it does not appear that you have channel on your fence or table for dust (sorry if it is there and I missed it). I found it helpful to have 1/8” channel in front of the fence to avoid having sawdust pushing the piece out of square.

RonPeters: I find the RAS to be extremely flexible in terms of the cuts that can be made and I feel safer making cuts on the RAS compared to the TS because I can see the blade and control it’s path. This is particularly helpful for cutting with a dado set.

People have a phobia about rip cuts on the RAS that I do not share and have not experienced as being worse than the TS (ripping is easier on the TS though).

I find the RAS with the proper jigs to be a lot more accurate than a compound miter saw (IMHO) for complex cuts. Also I find the big work surface, longer cross cut length and greater flexibility in blade position to be advantageous for both cross cuts and specialty cuts.

When I started, I only had two power tools – a router and a RAS. Unless you can afford a real TS, I think the RAS is a better starting point. In my opinion you can get a used RAS for $100-200, tune it up and do a lot more than you will be able to on a 10” benchtop or contractor saw that costs $500-700. It takes a little longer to set up custs accurately and safely but these are good habit to learn when you are starting.